Monday Smiles – 10/22/2012

Friday night, I had plans to meet a friend at a 12-Step meeting. Usually, I do my 12-Stepping during the week and leave my weekends for Muri but he is a good friend and really wanted me to hear a certain speaker. Like many 12-Step meetings, this one rents a room in a local church … The Wilshire Presbyterian Church, he said, on Wilshire Avenue. On line, I could only find a Wilshire Community Church on Wilshire, so I assumed that was it. Presbyterians are part of the community, right? I arrived at the church at 7:10 for a 7:00 meeting and followed some people up to the second floor to the multipurpose room. The multipurpose room was full of parents watching little boys play basketball, so I checked all the rooms on the first and second floors. Nada. I took the elevator to the basement but while I was looking for the meeting, I discovered that that the basement was the church pre-school … which meant that every entrance was barred by a heavy, locked iron gate. No way out. I found my way back to the elevator and pressed the Call Button … nothing. Apparently, they don’t want the little buggers to escape … or bigger buggers either … I was locked in without a soul in sight. Trying not to panic, I found a place to sit on the floor where I could see the elevator entrance on the floor above me. Thirty minutes later, a Mom coming to pick up her son brought the elevator down to rescue. I missed the meeting, an inauspicious start to the weekend. Fortunately, things would improve but not immediately. Home from my adventure in my recliner, I could think of nothing to post for Saturday.

Saturday morning, over coffee, I noticed a political ad that gave me the idea for Communists and Rich Guys, my Saturday post. Don’t you love it when an idea shows up out of nowhere and grows into a post before your eyes? As I said, things would improve. The weather had turned to autumn here in Socal, so I drove to the park for lunch and a bike ride, returning home in time for some afternoon football. By the time Muri and I left for an early Date Night, my USC Trojans were ahead, 33-6. Weekend mproving. A lot. We both had prime rib at the Prime Cut Cafe and Wine Bar , a very nice steakhouse I found on Open Table, the online reservation service. I don’t know why but I hate to call for reservations and Open Table allows me to search for restaurants and make reservations from a phone app. Then we saw the lighthearted film, Here Comes the Boom, starring Kevin James. It is the kind of film I can hate but Kevin James cracks me up. We laughed our tails off, which I hope annoys the hell out of the 84% of critics who didn’t like it. They’d probably just say we were unsophisticated bumpkins. Oh, well. Weekend still improving.

Sunday morning, we picked up lox and bagels for breakfast at Bagel Me, then headed off for a 1:00 performance of the new comedy, Seminar, at the Ahmanson Theater, part of the Music Center complex in LA.** The Music Center is where we began our love affair with live theater when we moved here from a small town in Rhode Island 41 years ago and I think we still love it best. We like to arrive early and have coffee or a snack on the plaza surrounding the three performance venues, the Ahmanson Theater, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and Mark Taper Forum, just watching the people go by. The crowds are quirkier, more diverse and more urbane … and you never know who will walk by. Today it was Ed Begley, who’s starring in a production at the Mark Taper. The productions are usually a step up, too, interesting stagings of productions that make you think, sometimes starring performers you know, like Jeff Goldblum in Seminar. The play was excellent, just the sort of serious comedy Muri and I love … and it was about writers and the nature of the writing experience. That’s all I’m going to say because Seminar deserves its own post. That will be Wednesday.

So, we picked up pizza for dinner on the way home, then I watched a little more football before dragging out my trusty laptop and settling into my recliner to post … Acoustic Alchemy Radio playing in the background on Pandora through my Roku. Oh, yeah. The final score was USC 50, Colorado 6. It’s been a good weekend. Except for getting locked in the pre-school. I could have done without that. But it is Monday and I am smiling.

** Oh, yeah. We were so busy, I didn’t post Sunday. I’m trying to be a little less obsessive.